30971863 becker 1955 what are historical facts

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What are Historical Facts?

Carl L. Becker

The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 3. (Sep., 1955), pp. 327-340.

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VOL.VIII SEPTEMBER, 1955 No. 3

WHAT ARE HISTORICAL FACTS?*

HISTORY is a venerable branch of knowledge, and the writing of

history is an art of long standing. Everyone knows what history is,

that is, everyone is familiar with the word, and has a confident

notion of what it means. In general, history has to do with the thought

and action of men and women who lived in past times. Everyone knows

what the past is too. W e all have a comforting sense that it lies behind us,

like a stretch of uneven country we have crossed; and it is often difficult

to avoid the notion that one could easily, by turning round, walk back

into this country of the past. That , at all events, is what we commonly

think of the historian as doing: he works in the past, he explores the past

in order to find out what men did and thought in the past. His business is

to discover and set forth the "facts" of history.

When anyone says "facts" we are all there. The word gives us a sense

of stability. W e know where we are when, as we say, we "get down to the

facts"-as, for example, we know where we are when we get down to the

facts of the structure of the atom, or the incredible movement of the

electron as it jumps from one orbit to another. It is the same with history.

Historians feel safe when dealing with the facts. W e talk much about the

"hard facts" and the "cold facts," about "not being able to get around the

facts," and about the necessity of basing our narrative on a "solid founda-

tion of fact." By virtue of talking in this way, the facts of history come in

the end to seem something solid, something substantial like physical matter

(I mean matter in the common sense, not matter defined as "a series of

events in the ether"), something possessing definite shape, and clear per-

sistent outline-like bricks or scantlings; so that we can easily picture the

historian as he stumbles about in the past, stubbing his toe on the hard

facts if he doesn't watch out. That is his affair of course, a danger he runs;

*This hitherto unpublished paper by the late Carl L. Becker was read at the 41st annual

meeting of the American Historical Association at Rochester, New York, in December,

1926. It is printed here through the courtesy of the Cornell University Library.

327



328 THE WESTERN POLITICAL QUARTERLY

for his business is to dig out the facts and pile them up for someone to use.

Perhaps he may use them himself; but at all events he must arrange them

conveniently so that someone-perhaps the sociologist or the economist-may easily carry them away for use in some structural enterprise.

Such (with no doubt a little, but not much, exaggeration to give point

to the matter) are the common connotations of the words historical facts,

as used by historians and other people. Now, when I meet a word with

which I am entirely unfamiliar, I find it a good plan to look it up in the

dictionary and find out what someone thinks it means. But when I have

frequently to use words with which everyone is perfectly familiar-words

like "cause" and "liberty" and "progress" and "government" -when I

have to use words of this sort which everyone knows perfectly well, the

wise thing to do is to take a week off and think about them. The result

is often astonishing; for as often as not I find that I have been talking

about words instead of real things. Well, "historical fact" is such a word;

and I suspect it would be worthwhile for us historians at least to think

about this word more than we have done. For the moment therefore,

leaving the historian moving about in the past piling up the cold facts, I

wish to inquire whether the historical fact is really as hard and stable as

it is often supposed to be.

And this inquiry I will throw into the form of three simple questions.

I will ask the questions, I can't promise to answer them. The questions

are: (1) W hat is the historical fact? (2) Where is the historical fact?

(3) When is the historical fact? Mind I say is not was. I take it for

granted that if we are interested in, let us say, the fact of the Magna Carta,

we are interested in it for our own sake and not for its sake; and since we

are living now and not in 1215 we must be interested in the Magna Carta,

if at all, for what it is and not for what it was.

First then, W hat is the historical fact? Let us take a simple fact, as

simple as the historian often deals with, viz.: "In the year 49 B.C. Caesar

crossed the Rubicon." A familiar fact this is, known to all, and obviously of

some importance since it is mentioned in every history of the great Caesar.

But is this fact as simple as it sounds? Has it the clear, persistent outline

which we commonly attribute to simple historical facts? When we say

that Caesar crossed the Rubicon we do not of course mean that Caesar

crossed it alone, but with his army. The Rubicon is a small river, and I

don't know how long it took Caesar's army to cross it; but the crossing

must surely have been accompanied by many acts and many words andmany thoughts of many men. That is to say, a thousand and one lesser

"facts" went to make up the one simple fact that Caesar crossed the

Rubicon; and if we had someone, say James Joyce, to know and relate all

these facts, it would no doubt require a book of 794 pages to present this



329HAT ARE HISTORICAL FACTS?

one fact that Caesar crossed the Rubicon. Thus the simple fact turns out

to be not a simple fact at all. It is the statement that is simple-a simple

generalization of a thousand and one facts.

Well, anyhow Caesar crossed the Rubicon. But what of it? Many

other people at other times crossed the Rubicon. Why charge it up to

Caesar? Why for two thousand years has the world treasured this simple

fact that in the year 49 B.C. Caesar crossed the Rubicon? What of it

indeed? If I, as historian, have nothing to give you but this fact taken by

itself with its clear outline, with no fringes or strings tied to it, I should

have to say, if I were an honest man, why nothing of it, nothing at all.

It may be a fact but it is nothing to us. The truth is, of course, that this

simple fact has strings tied to it, and that is why it has been treasured

for two thousand years. It is tied by these strings to innumerable other

facts, so that it can't mean anything except by losing its clear outline. It

can't mean anything except as it is absorbed into the complex web of

circumstances which brought it into being. This complex web of circum-

stances was the series of events growing out of the relation of Caesar to

Pompey, and the Roman Senate, and the Roman Republic, and all the

people who had something to do with these. Caesar had been ordered by

the Roman Senate to resign his command of the army in Gaul. He decided

to disobey the Roman Senate. Instead of resigning his command, he

marched on Rome, gained the mastery of the Republic, and at last, as we

are told, bestrode the narrow world like a colossus. Well, the Rubicon

happened to be the boundary between Gaul and Italy, so that by the act of

crossing the Rubicon with his army Caesar's treason became an accom-

plished fact and the subsequent great events followed in due course. Apart

from these great events and complicated relations, the crossing of the Rubi-

con means nothing, is not an historical fact properly speaking at all. In

itself it is nothing for us; it becomes something for us, not in itself, but as a

symbol of something else, a symbol standing for a long series of events

which have to do with the most intangible and immaterial realities, viz.:

the relation between Caesar and the millions of people of the Roman world.

Thus the simple historical fact turns out to be not a hard, cold some-

thing with clear outline, and measurable pressure, like a brick. It is so far

as we can know it, only a symbol, a simple statement which is a generaliza-

tion of a thousand and one simpler facts which we do not for the moment

care to use, and this generalization itself we cannot use apart from the

wider facts and generalizations which it symbolizes. And generally speak-

ing, the more simple an historical fact is, the more clear and definite and

provable it is, the less use it is to us in and for itself.

Less simple facts illustrate all this equally well, even better perhaps.

For example, the fact that "Indulgences were sold in Germany in 1517."This fact can be proved down to the ground. No one doubts it. But taken




by itself the fact is nothing, means nothing. It also is a generalization of a

thousand and one facts, a thousand and one actions of innumerable sellers

and buyers of indulgences all over Germany at many different times; andthis also acquires significance and meaning only as it is related to other

facts and wider generalizations.

But there are even more indefinite and impalpable facts than these.

In the middle of the nineteenth century German historians (and others),

studying the customs of the primitive German tribes, discovered a com-

munal institution which they called the German or Teutonic Mark. The

German Mark was the product of the historian's fertile imagination work-

ing on a few sentences in Caesar's Gall ic W ar s and a few passages in a book

called Germania written by Tacitus, a disgruntled Roman who tried to get

rid of a complex by idealizing the primitive Germans. The German Mark

of the historians was largely a myth, corresponding to no reality. The

German Mark is nevertheless an historical fact. The idea of the German

Mark in the minds of the German historians is a fact in the intellectual

history of the nineteenth century-and an important one too. All the

elaborate notes I took in college on the German Mark I have therefore

long since transferred to those filing cases which contain my notes on the

nineteenth century; and there they now repose, side by side with notes on

the Russian Mir, on Hegel's Philosophy of History, on the Positivism of

August Comte, on Bentham's greatest good to the greatest number, on

the economic theory of the British classical economists, and other illusions

of that time.

What then is the historical fact? Far be it from me to define so illusive

and intangible a thing! But provisionally I will say this: the historian may

be interested in anything that has to do with the life of man in the past-any act or event, any emotion which men have expressed, any idea, true

or false, which they have entertained. Very well, the historian is interested

in some event of this sort. Yet he cannot deal directly with this event itself,

since the event itself has disappeared. What he can deal with directly is a

statement about the ev ent . He deals in short not with the event, but with

a statement which affirms the fact that the event occurred. When we

really get down to the hard facts, what the historian is always dealing with

is an affirmation-an affirmation of the fact that something is true. There

is thus a distinction of capital importance to be made: the distinction

between the ephemeral event which disappears, and the affirmation about

the event which persists. For all practical purposes it is this affirmation

about the event that constitutes for us the historical fact. If so the historical

fact is not the past event, but a symbol which enables us to recreate it

imaginatively. Of a symbol it is hardly worthwhile to say that it is cold

or hard. It is dangerous to say even that it is true or false. The safest

thing to say about a symbol is that it is more or less appropriate.



W HA T ARE HISTORICAL FACTS? 331

This brings me to the second question-Where is the historical fact?

I will say at once, however brash it sounds, that the historical fact is in

someone's mind or it is nowhere. T o illustrate this statement I will take

an event familiar to all. "Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in Ford's

Theater in Washington on the 14th of April, 1865." That was an actual

evenr, occurrence, fact at the moment of happening. But speaking now,

in the year 1926, we say it is an historical fact. W e don't say that it was

an historical fact, for that would imply that it no longer is one. W e say

that it was an actual event, but is now an historical fact. The actual oc-

currence and the historical fact, however closely connected, are two dif-

ferent things. Very well, if the assassination of Lincoln is an historical

fact, where is this fact now? Lincoln is not being assassinated now in Ford's

Theater, or anywhere else (except perhaps in propagandist literature!).

The actual occurrence, the event, has passed, is gone forever, never to be

repeated, never to be again experienced or witnessed by any living person.

Yet this is precisely the sort of thing the historian is concerned with-events, acts, thoughts, emotions that have forever vanished as actual occur-

rences. How can the historian deal with vanished realities? He can deal

with them because these vanished realities give place to pale reflections,

impalpable images or ideas of themselves, and these pale reflections, and

impalpable images which cannot be touched or handled are all that is left

of the actual occurrence. These are therefore what the historian deals with.

These are his "material." He has to be satisfied with these, for the very

good reason that he has nothing else. Well then, where are they- these

pale reflections and impalpable images of the actual? Wh ere are these facts?

They are, as I said before, in his mind, or in somebody's mind, or they are

nowhere.

Ah, but they are in the records, in the sources, I hear someone say.

Yes, in a sense, they are in the sources. Th e historical fact of Lincoln's

assassination is in the records-in contemporary newspapers, letters,

diaries, etc. In a sense the fact is there, but in what sense? T h e records

are after all only paper, over the surface of which ink has been distributed

in certain patterns. And even these patterns were not made by the actual

occurrence, the assassination of Lincoln. Th e patterns are themselves only

"histories" of the event, made by someone who had in his mind an image

or idea of Lincoln's assassination. Of course we, you and I, can, by looking

at these inky patterns, form in our minds images or ideas more or less like

those in the mind of the person who made the patterns. But if there werenow no one in the world who could make any meaning out of the patterned

records or sources, the fact of Lincoln's assassination would cease to be

an historical fact. You might perhaps call it a dead fact; but a fact which

is not only dead, but not known ever to have been alive, or even known




to be now dead, is surely not much of a fact. A t all events, the historical

facts lying dead in the records can do nothing good or evil in the world.

They become historical facts, capable of doing work, of making a difference,

only when someone, you or I, brings them alive in our minds by means of

pictures, images, or ideas of the actual occurrence. For this reason I say

that the historical fact is in someone's mind, or it is nowhere, because when

it is in no one's mind it lies in the records inert, incapable of making a

difference in the world.

But perhaps you will say that the assassination of Lincoln has made a

difference in the world, and that this difference is now effectively working,

even if, for a moment, or an hour or a week, no one in the world has the

image of the actual occurrence in mind. Quite obviously so, but why?

Quite obviously because after the actual event people remembered it, and

because ever since they have continued to remember it, by repeatedly form-

ing images of it in their mind. If the people of the United States had been

incapable of enduring memory, for example, like dogs (as I assume; not

being a dog I can't be sure) would the assassination of Lincoln be now

doing work in the world, making a difference? If everyone had forgotten

the occurrence after forty-eight hours, what difference would the occur-

rence have made, then or since? It is precisely because people have long

memories, and have constantly formed images in their minds of the as-

sassination of Lincoln, that the universe contains the historical fact which

persists as well as the actual event which does not persist. It is the persisting

historical fact, rather than the ephemeral actual event, which makes a

difference to us now; and the historical fact makes a difference only

because it is, and so far as it is, in human minds.

Now for the third question-When is the historical fact? If you agree

with what has been said (which is extremely doubtful) the answer seems

simple enough. If the historical fact is present, imaginatively, in someone's

mind, then it is now, a part of the present. But the word present is a

slippery word, and the thing itself is worse than the word. The present is

an indefinable point in time, gone before you can think it; the image or

idea which I have now present in mind slips instantly into the past. But

images or ideas of past events are often, perhaps always, inseparable from

images or ideas of the future. Take an illustration. I awake this morning,

and among the things my memory drags in to enlighten or distress me is a

vague notion that there was something I needed particularly to remember

but cannot-

a common experience surely. What is it that I needed toremember I cannot recall; but I can recall that I made a note of it in order

to jog my memory. So I consult my little pocket memorandum book-

a little Private Record Office which I carry about, filled with historical

sources. I take out my memorandum book in order to do a little historical




that this notion is preposterous; first, because it is impossible to present all

the facts; and second, because even if you could present all the facts the

miserable things wouldn't say anything, would say just nothing at all.

Let us return to the simple fact: "Lincoln was assassinated in Ford's

Theater, in Washington, April 14, 1865." This is not all the facts. It is,

if you like, a representation of all the facts, and a representation that

perhaps satisfies one historian. But another historian, for some reason,

is not satisfied. He says: "On April 14, 1865, in Washington, Lincoln,

sitting in a private box in Ford's Theater watching a play, was shot by

John Wilkes Booth, who then jumped to the stage crying out, 'Sic sernper

tyrannis!' " That is a true affirmation about th e event also. It represents,

if you like, all the facts too. But its form and content (one and the same

thing in literary discourse) is different, because it contains more of the

facts than the other. Well, the point is that any number of affirmations

(an infinite number if the sources were sufficient) could be made about

the actual event, all true, all representing the event, but some containing

more and some less of the factual aspects of the total event. But by no

possibility can the historian make affirmations describing all of the facts-all of the acts, thoughts, emotions of all of the persons who contributed

to the actual event in its entirety. One historian will therefore necessarily

choose certain affirmations about the event, and relate them in a certain

way, rejecting other affirmations and other ways of relating them. Another

historian will necessarily make a different choice. Why ? What is it that

leads one historian to make, out of all the possible true affirmations about

the given event, certain affirmations and not others? Why, the purpose

he has in his mind will determine that. An d so the purpose he has in mind

will determine the precise meaning which he derives from the event. The

event itself, the facts, do not say anything, do not impose any meaning.

It is the historian who speaks, who imposes a meaning.

A second implication follows from this. It is that the historian cannot

eliminate the personal equation. Of course, no one can; not even, I think,

the natural scientist. The universe speaks to us only in response t o our

purposes; and even the most objective constructions, those, let us say, of

the theoretical physicist, are not the sole possible constructions, but only

such as are found most convenient for some human need or purpose.

Nevertheless, the physicist can eliminate the personal equation to a greater

extent, or at least in a different way, than the historian, because he deals,

as the historian does not, with an external world directly. The physicistpresides at the living event, the historian presides only at the inquest of its

remains. If I were alone in the universe and gashed my finger on a sharp

rock, I could never be certain that there was anything there but my con-

sciousness of the rock and gashed finger. But if ten other men in precisely




the same way gash their fingers on the same sharp rock, we can, by com-

paring impressions, infer that there is something there besides consciousness.

There is an external world there. The physicist can gash his finger on the

rock as many times as he likes, and get others to do it, until they are all

certain of the facts. He can, as Eddington says, make pointer-readings of

the behavior of the physical world as many times as he likes for a given

phenomenon, until he and his colleagues are satisfied. When their minds

all rest satisfied they have an explanation, what is called the truth. But

suppose the physicist had to reach his conclusions from miscellaneous

records, made by all sorts of people, of experiments that had been made

in the past, each experiment made only once, and none of them capable

of being repeated. The external world he would then have to deal with

would be the records. That is the case of the historian. The only external

world he has to deal with is the records. He can indeed look at the records

as often as he likes, and he can get dozens of others to look at them:

and some things, some "facts," can in this way be established and agreed

upon, as, for example, the fact that the document known as the Declara-

tion of Independence was voted on July 4, 1776. But the meaning and

significance of this fact cannot be thus agreed upon, because the series of

events in which it has a place cannot be enacted again and again, under

varying conditions, in order to see what effect the variations would have.

The historian has to judge the significance of the series of events from

the one single performance, never to be repeated, and never, since the

records are incomplete and imperfect, capable of being fully known or fully

affirmed. Thus into the imagined facts and their meaning there enters the

personal equation. The history of any event is never precisely the same

thing to two different persons; and it is well known that every generation

writes the same history in a new way, and puts upon it a new construction.

The reason why this is so-why the same series of vanished events is

differently imagined in each succeeding generation-is that our imagined

picture of the actual event is always determined by two things: (1) by the

actual event itself insofar as we can know something about it; and (2) by

our own present purposes, desires, prepossessions, and prejudices, all of

which enter into the process of knowing it. The actual event contributes

something to the imagined picture; but the mind that holds the imagined

picture always contributes something too. This is why there is no more

fascinating or illuminating phase of history than historiography-the his-

tory of history: the history, tha t is, of what successive generations haveimagined the past to be like. It is impossible to understand the history

of certain great events without knowing what the actors in those events

themselves thought about history. For example, it helps immensely to

understand why the leaders of the American and French Revolutions acted




and thought as they did if we know what their idea of classical history was.

They desired, to put it simply, to be virtuous republicans, and to act the

part. Well, they were able to act the part of virtuous republicans much

more effectively because they carried around in their heads an idea, or

ideal if you prefer, of Greek republicanism and Roman virtue. But of

course their own desire to be virtuous republicans had a great influence in

making them think the Greek and Romans, whom they had been taught

to admire by reading the classics in school, were virtuous republicans too.

Their image of the present and future and their image of the classical past

were inseparable, bound together-were really one and the same thing.

In this way the present influences our idea of the past, and our idea of

the past influences the present. W e are accustomed to say that "the present

is the product of all the past"; and this is what is ordinarily meant by the

historian's doctrine of "historical continuity." But it is only a half truth.

It is equally true, and no mere paradox, to say that the past (our imagined

picture of it) is the product of all the present. W e build our conceptions

of history partly out of our present needs and purposes. The past is a kind

of screen upon which we project our vision of the future; and it is indeed

a moving picture, borrowing much of its form and color from our fears

and aspirations. The doctrine of historical continuity is badly in need of

overhauling in the light of these suggestions; for that doctrine was itself

one of those pictures which the early nineteenth century threw upon the

screen of the past in order to quiet its deep-seated fears- fears occasioned

by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.

A third implication is that no one can profit by historical research,

or not much, unless he does some for himself. Historical knowledge, how-

ever richly stored in books or in the minds of professors of history, is no

good to me unless I have some of it. In this respect, historical research

differs profoundly from research in the natural sciences, at least in some

of them. For example, I know no physics, but I profit from physical re-

searches every night by the simple act of pressing an electric light button.

And everyone can profit in this way from researches in physics without

knowing any physics, without knowing even that there is such a thing as

physics. But with history it is different. Henry Ford, for example, can't

profit from all the historical researches of two thousand years, because

he knows so little history himself. By no pressing of any button can he flood

the spare rooms of his mind with the light of human experience.

A fourth implication is more important than the others. It is that everynormal person does know some history, a good deal in fact. Of course we

often hear someone say: "I don't know any history; I wish I knew some

history; I must improve my mind by learning some history." W e know

what is meant. This person means that he has never read any history books,




they inevitably picture the past in some fashion or other, and this picture,

however little it corresponds to the real past, helps to determine their

ideas about politics and society. This is especially true in times of excite-ment, in critical times, in time of war above all. It is precisely in such

times that they form (with the efficient help of official propaganda!) an

idealized picture of the past, born of their emotions and desires working

on fragmentary scraps of knowledge gathered, or rather flowing in upon

them, from every conceivable source, reliable or not matters nothing.

Doubtless the proper function of erudite historical research is to be forever

correcting the common image of the past by bringing it to the test of reliable

information. But the professional historian will never get his own chastened

and corrected image of the past into common minds if no one reads hisbooks. His books may be as solid as you like, but their social influence will

be nil i f people do not read them and not merely read them, but read them

willingly and with understanding.

It is, indeed, not wholly the historian's fault that the mass of men

will not read good history willingly and with understanding; but I think we

should not be too complacent about it. The recent World War leaves us

with little ground indeed for being complacent about anything; but certainly

it furnishes us with no reason for supposing that historical research has

much influence on the course of events. The nineteenth century is oftencalled the age of Science, and it is often called the age of history. Both

statements are correct enough. During the hundred years that passed be-

tween 1814 and 1914 an unprecedented and incredible amount of research

was carried on, research into every field of history-minute, critical, ex-

haustive (and exhausting!) research. Our libraries are filled with this

stored up knowledge of the past; and never before has there been at the

disposal of society so much reliable knowledge of human experience.

What influence has all this expert research had upon the social life of our

time? Has it done anything to restrain the foolishness of politicians or toenhance the wisdom of statesmen? Has it done anything to enlighten the

mass of the people, or to enable them to act with greater wisdom or in

response to a more reasoned purpose? Very little surely, if anything.

Certainly a hundred years of expert historical research did nothing to

prevent the World War , the most futile exhibition of unreason, take it all

in all, ever made by civilized society. Governments and peoples rushed

into this war with undiminished stupidity, with unabated fanaticism, with

unimpaired capacity for deceiving themselves and others. I do not say that

historical research is to blame for the World War. I say that it had littleor no influence upon it, one way or another.

It is interesting, although no necessary part of this paper, to contrast

this negligible influence of historical research upon social life with the

profound influence of scientific research. A hundred years of scientific




research has transformed the conditions of life. How it has done this is

known to all. By enabling men to control natural forces it has made life

more comfortable and convenient, at least for the well-to-do. It has done

much to prevent and cure disease, to alleviate pain and suffering. But its

benefits are not unmixed. By accelerating the speed and pressure of life it

has injected into it a nervous strain, a restlessness, a capacity for irritation

and an impatience of restraint never before known. And this power which

scientific research lays at the feet of society serves equally well all who

can make use of it-the harbingers of death as well as of life. It was

scientific research that made the war of 1914, which historical research did

nothing to prevent, a world war. Because of scientific research it could be,

and was, fought with more cruelty and ruthlessness, and on a grander

scale, than any previous war; because of scientific research it became a

systematic massed butchery such as no one had dreamed of, or supposed

possible. I do not say that scientific research is to blame for the war; I say

that it made it the ghastly thing it was, determined its extent and character.

What I am pointing out is that scientific research has had a profound

influence in changing the conditions of modern life, whereas historical

research has had at best only a negligible influence. Whether the profound

influence of the one has been of more or less benefit to humanity than the

negligible influence of the other, I am unable to determine. Doubtless both

the joys and frustrations of modern life, including those of the scholarly

activities, may be all accommodated and reconciled within that wonderful

idea of Progress which we all like to acclaim- none more so, surely, than

historians and scientists.

30971863 becker 1955 what are historical facts

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